Training in the Agoge Spartan youths were required to train barefoot. This would not only toughen them up but also develop superior athleticism and agility.
While little is known about exactly what was done to achieve ultimate physical fitness, the Spartan warriors likely focused on drills that practiced strength, agility, and building stamina. Drills like marching extremely long distances, wrestling, and even dancing built stamina and agility required for long battles.
Physical exercise and weight lifting
They were taken from their parents and enrolled in a military program called the “agoge.” This state-sponsored training included running, scholastics, spear throwing, and sword fighting. From the age of 12, Spartan “youths” had to walk barefoot to harden up their feet.
Spartan Education & Military Training. Throughout their adolescent and teenage years, Spartan boys were required to become proficient in all manner of military activities. They were taught boxing, swimming, wrestling, javelin-throwing, and discus-throwing. They were trained to harden themselves to the elements.
The actual training of the Spartan youth was brutal, focusing on cultivating skills such as fighting, stealth, pain tolerance, as well as dancing, singing, and developing loyalty to the Spartan state.
What was important was to be a brave soldier. Spartan boys were taught to suffer any amount of physical pain without complaining. They marched without shoes. They were not fed well, and they were encouraged to steal food as long as they didn't get caught.
All aspects of daily life in Sparta were strictly regimented with no luxuries. Spartan men were raised to be warriors their entire lives and to practice absolute obedience and service to the state. They lived in military barracks until the age of 30.
The site hosted Sparta's brutal initiation ritual in which young boys were beaten to prepare them for military service, but there was more to it than warfare.
All male Spartan citizens became soldiers at age 20. Men retired from soldiering at age 60 and could then become elders.
Spartan Society
All male Spartan citizens between the ages of 20 and 60 served in the army and, though allowed to marry, they had to belong to a men's dining club and eat and sleep in the public barracks. They were forbidden to possess gold and silver, and their money consisted only of iron bars.
Spartan men spent their days either fighting in wars or training for battle. All fit males spent the majority of their lives in the army. Newborn sons were examined to determine their strength.
Because the Spartiate made up such a small percentage of Spartan society, and the glue holding the entire social experiment together was the fighting ability of the individual Spartan, it was crucial that every Spartan be fit for combat as long as physically possible. This was even built into their laws.
Excercising routine:
For the ancient athletes running was a must. They run a lot as running gives the highest cardiovascular payoff with the littlest effort. There were no slick gym machines and Greeks relied purely on body-weight exercises using whatever they could find. Lifting stones and animals for strength.
Calisthenics — known to the ancient Greek Spartans of 480BC as kilos sthenos ('beautiful strength') — are exercises relying solely on bodyweight and gravity. Well-known examples include press-ups, pull-ups and chin-ups.
They were fed after passing the Agoge-their slaves kept them well-fed. They were also physically fit from constant exercise.
A Spartan man was considered to have graduated from the agōgē at age 30, at which time he was expected to have been accepted into a syssition and was permitted to have a family. He would also receive a kleros, an allotment of land farmed by helots.
Meaning “a leading,” this thirteen-year physical, military, religious, and moral education trained a boy in the aptitudes, knowledge, and virtues he would need to become a man and join the Homoioi — the “Equals” or “Peers.” Only these Spartiates could become full citizens of Lacedaemon and join its elite warrior class.
From the age of seven, Spartan boys were ingrained with nationalistic values and extreme physical training until the age of 30, when their education was complete.
In Athens and Sparta, homosexuality was practiced to various degrees, and its status was somewhat “complicated,” according to Plato's Pausanias. In Thebes, on the other hand, it was actively encouraged, and even legally incentivized.
The female Spartan was honored as the equal of the male in her own sphere of power and authority and, even in the accounts of detractors, performed admirably. It could be argued, in fact, that the strength of the Spartan women allowed for the formidable reputation of the same in the Spartan men.
Ancient Sparta has been held up for the last two and a half millennia as the unmatched warrior city-state, where every male was raised from infancy to fight to the death.
Spartan men stayed in the army until they turned 60. The Spartans believed that the most important qualities of good soldiers were self-discipline and obedience.
Young boys were taken from their homes at the age of 7 to live in the state barracks. Once there, they were given a minimum amount of clothes and food. The cold and hunger often compelled the boys to steal. Stealing was actually encourage as it taught stealth.
adjective. A spartan lifestyle or existence is very simple or strict, with no luxuries.